~Muspelheim~
This was a scorching, crimson world, with an oppressive sky that was choked with thick, heavy clouds that seemed heaped from volcanic ash, shrouding the realm in perpetual darkness.
Thor swung Mjolnir, shattering the swarming Fire Demons as they surged toward him. These creatures of hulking, blackened masses that looked like something forged from charred rock and living flame poured at the Asgardian prince in teeming waves, relentless as an ant colony.
Mjolnir spun in a blur. The air thundered and cracked with the roar of trapped lightning, echoing through the vast underground world.
Blazing arcs of electricity flickered like silver serpents, lashing out with raw, violent energy.
The Fire Demons rushing headlong at Thor were smashed apart into showers of sparks before crumbling to ash.
On Thor's back hung the heavy crown of the Fire Giant, Surtur's power given solid form. Thor had foreseen Ragnarok in his dreams, that was why he had come to Muspelheim, the legendary Realm of Fire.
In the vision sent by the Norns, Asgard drowned in a sea of raging flame, the golden palace collapsed in ruin, and the Bifrost snapped and shattered. The entire world had come undone in an apocalypse made real.
And there stood Surtur, a colossal fire giant, looming over the peaks, wielding the Twilight Sword and unleashing torrents of furious flames that extinguished all life.
Thor, having witnessed Ragnarok in his dreams, had decided to strike first. He followed in Odin's footsteps from long ago and charged into the Fire Realm alone and deal with Surtur himself.
It was, admittedly, a very Asgardian approach: When in doubt, charge straight in.
Besides, Surtur was a shadow of his former self. The terror his name once commanded had long since faded.
Odin, much like he had done with Laufey of the Frost Giants, had torn the Eternal Flame from Surtur's possession. The Fire Giant whose rage had once been hot enough to consume an entire world had withered ever since, forced to hide in the deep places and wait for Ragnarok to come.
"What in the Nine Realms is Heimdall doing?" Thor shuddered, staring at the endless tide of Fire Demons crashing toward him.
Even Mjolnir, for all its power, could only do so much against a never ending tide of enemies. Sooner or later, they would drag him under and pick his bones clean.
He shouted Heimdall's name again, and this time, a colossal column of light tore down from the heavens, enveloping him just as a fire-belching wyrm lunged for his throat.
Blinding brilliance flared, and the dark matter energy of the Bifrost surged like a tide. Thor launched himself through the passageway, and a massive, severed head came tumbling after him along with a spray of foul-smelling blood.
It was the wyrm's head. It had been caught in the Bifrost's radius and sheared clean off. The thing was the size of a mammoth.
"Who are you? Where is Heimdall?" Thor scowled at the bald man who now stood drenched in putrid green ichor.
The stranger wore armor and held the key to the Bifrost; a heavy, two-handed greatsword.
As Keeper of the Bridge, guarding the Bifrost was Heimdall's sacred duty. He had never, in all his years, abandoned his post. That was why Odin trusted him implicitly.
"I am Skurge. I once had the honor of fighting alongside you, my prince, in Vanaheim." The man replied, his face wearing an odd expression.
He looked at the battered and travel-worn Thor and seemed to struggle with something unsaid.
After a moment's hesitation, perhaps driven by a guilty conscience, Skurge spoke carefully, "If I may be blunt... you should not have returned to Asgard. Not now."
Thor stopped in his tracks, a cold knot of foreboding tightening in his gut.
It seemed something had happened while he was gone... something terrible enough to drive Heimdall from his post.
His grip tightened around Mjolnir as his eyes turned toward the direction of the golden palace. A vast, cold, deathly presence was rising there, reaching up into the sky.
Then a memory struck Thor like a blow... Odin had once told him of an elder sister imprisoned in Helheim.
Her name was Hela, Odin's firstborn. She had commanded the Valkyries in countless battles, pacifying the chaos that had plagued the Nine Realms. For her fearsome power and her ruthless methods, she had been called the Goddess of Death.
However, the same blood that made her mighty also carried a madness for conquest and destruction. Her ambition had swelled with every war, until at last, even Odin could no longer restrain it.
And so the King of Asgard, having finally secured his throne as overlord of the Nine Realms, had imprisoned his own daughter with a heavy heart. He had cast her into the frozen silence of Helheim. Then he had erased every trace of her from history.
That was why Thor had been so stunned when he first learned of her existence, because no one had ever spoken so much as a whisper of it.
Odin had warned him plainly that Hela's power was drawn from Asgard itself. If ever she returned, she would grow impossibly strong. Even Odin himself might not be able to stop her...
Mjolnir tore through the air, dragging Thor in its wake. He touched down before the palace and heard a woman's cold, imperious voice:
"I've noticed something... you seem to know nothing at all about me. I am Hela, firstborn of Odin and Commander of the Legions of Asgard. I'm the rightful heir to the throne... I am the Goddess of Death!" she said, "Odin is dead. He has returned to the embrace of Yggdrasil. Once, we were the symbol of absolute power in this universe! None dared challenge our authority. But my father stopped at the Nine Realms. He forgot the very purpose for which Asgard was born; to rule all things! To conquer all things! I have returned to reclaim the glory of our empire. To slaughter every enemy who dares defy us. Kneel before me. Join me on the path of conquest. This is a road paved with glory!"
Thor entered the wide courtyard. A woman in a billowing green cape stood at the base of the steps, her black hair spilling from beneath a jagged crown.
Below her, the palace guards had gathered in tight formation. Their spears were raised, armor gleaming, led by the Warriors Three. They stood braced, ready to charge at any moment.
"You say our father is dead?" Thor stepped forward from the ranks, refusing to believe that the King of Asgard, the mightiest being in the Nine Realms, could have fallen, "I am Thor, son of Odin! My father spoke of you, Hela, my sister."
Hela cast a sidelong glance at the broad-shouldered, battle-ready Thor. A scornful smile curled across her coldly beautiful face.
She looked down at him from her perch and said, "Is that so? You are nothing like him. You are a warrior, Odin was more of a king." Her tone held no respect, only mockery. She spat the words with barely concealed bitterness, "I saw everything from Helheim. Odin's body crumbled into dust, returning to the darkness of the universe... I found the sight deeply satisfying."
The Goddess of Death had spent eons in that frozen prison, alone in the silence, utterly forgotten by the realm she once helped build.
Hela added, "I hear I have another brother as well. Loki, is it? He probably takes after Father more than you do. Just as cunning and treacherous."
"You came back to rule everything?" Thor raised Mjolnir, his voice hard, "I'll gladly yield the throne... if you can lead our people to a just peace."
"What a foolish notion." Hela scoffed, her eyes cold and devoid of warmth, nothing like the warm scene of siblings meeting for the first time, "The throne of Asgard belongs to me. I was the one who rode beside Odin across the Nine Realms! I conquered nations! I won those glorious victories! But his vision was too small. He confined himself to these petty kingdoms of the Nine Realms. When I proposed waging war on yet more civilizations, the great King of Asgard threw me into Helheim, that frozen wasteland of mist and death! I spent endless ages there. Every single day, I waited for Odin to die so I could finally return!"
Hela fixed Thor with a cold stare. The word peace meant nothing to her. It was beneath contempt, "Look at this once-mighty realm. See what it has become. Thanos the Mad Titan, the Black Order, the Chitauri... When we crushed the Dark Elves and the Frost Giants and took our place as masters of the Nine Realms, filth like that wouldn't have dared to show their faces to us! Peace? Asgard has never needed that!"
She raised both hands, unleashing a torrent of cold, deathly darkness. Her black hair whipped and coiled, shaping itself into a crown of jagged, thorn-like horns.
She fixed her gaze on Thor and spoke in a voice of absolute command, "Kneel. Kneel before your Queen."
A dense and glittering swarm of black blades materialized from thin air around her, waiting to reap lives at any moment.
"I can't do that!" Thor roared in frustration. This sister of his was simply beyond reason.
He hurled Mjolnir with all his might. The hammer tore through the air like a thunderclap made solid, a shockwave ripping outward in its wake.
*Booom!*
The booming roar echoed through the Asgard, loud enough that one could have believed it would shatter any mountain foolish enough to stand in its path.
A slender arm rose calmly and caught the hammer that could break peaks. Mjolnir remained firmly in place against that pale palm. It strained and shuddered, but could not move an inch.
"That's... impossible!"
Hela's lips curved at Thor's cry of disbelief. She looked into her brother's stunned face and said, quietly, "Little one, you have no idea what 'impossible' means."
Mjolnir had once been her weapon. Odin had commissioned Eitri, King of the Dwarves, to forge it as a reward for his daughter's ever-growing strength. It was a trophy for her illustrious victories.
With a firm grip, the seemingly indestructible Mjolnir cracked with a dense web of fissures. Blinding arcs of white lightning lashed out like dying serpents. A brilliant, blinding flash erupted before quickly extinguishing.
A shockwave of displaced air howled across the courtyard as Mjolnir struck the ground in a scatter of broken fragments...